Originally Posted by scottw
you are pretty smart Buck, this is a great way of looking at it, our effect as individuals, personal responsibility....
the number used is actually 9% for mortality,
I'm sure that you'll agree that both private rec and for hires experience mortality and I'd argue it's much more difficult to effectively release fish from a boat than from shore....gaffs, live lining pogies, dropping eels, trolling umbrella rigs(multiple fish) all more popular with the boat crowd(they aren't throwing plugs or bucktails from a party boat and they don't gaff every fish from shore)
here's the part regarding the charter that you may or may not like or accept but the guy driving the boat is responsible for every fish caught or killed from his boat....the fact is that if he was not driving the boat none of those fish would be killed or caught, none of his clients would take a fish if he didn't drive them there and bait their hook on that trip and thus impact the population ....
I don't know what you think the average charter boat takes per year in terms of bass but can was use low numbers and say 4 of the maximum 6 clients get two fish, discount the mate and captain fish for now...that's 8 fish per trip, can we use 100 trips, had a "full time" captain say he did 100 last year and he said that was low due to weather. That's 800 fish (conservatively). If any of these numbers seem out of line I understand...I'm not an "expert"...just like to ask obvious questions. Can we also assume a mortality for released under size and over limit fish? Can we assume that they catch don't keep at least as many as they keep? Call the mortality 10% to keep the numbers easy...80 fish mortality...that's 880 fish very conservatively over the season that this one captain has overseen the taking of, or in my opinion"is responsible for" as I pointed out, they never would have been caught by those individuals without him driving the boat.
I'm going to use myself just to be as accurate as possible it obviously varies from one angler to another, I fish more than most average private/shore recs...(I love catching, filleting and grilling fish by the way), I'll include the bass that I kept last year as well as all of the bass that the people that I fished with last year in the totals and I'll overestimate regarding catch(that''s what fishermen do) and mortality...... although I do place more emphasis each year learning and improving catch techniques and release methods to improve this and many folks that I fish with do also.
So, I don't know exactly how many trips last year but if I use 100 bass landed that would be high. I didn't keep any bass but three friends that I fish with did. One was big and the other two were 28-30 inches, I can't remember the last time I fished with someone who took 2 bass. so that's 3 bass...plus mortality 10% that 10 fish...13 bass
so it would take me
and the folks that I fished with last year... approx. 68 years to remove the number of fish that the guy above did with his boat...
and here's the thing, those guys probably won't keep any next year...many private and shore recs ARE moving to other species (scup) and methods including freshwater, other sports even, I talk to them every day, many private/shore recs move in and out of the sport and are anything but consistent in their impact
if you want to compare on an individual basis, sure, there are more private and shore recs but the impact on an "individual" basis is not even close and I think most look it or compare on an individual basis
additionally, your average shore, private rec is far less likely to be locating and taking the large breeders with a few exceptions whereas they are targeted by the experienced and more accessible to boats in general....the impact mushrooms when you include experience, electronics, actual time on the water...a guided charter allows someone who would likely never impact the fishery on their own, to do it in ways that most other anglers either can't or won't...that to me is a special responsibility that the captain bears many times a season...
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